JB is an unabashed Les Paul dude. He got the Les Paul Standard (left) at 18. It was his main guitar for years (always favoring the neck pickup) until he purchased the 1978 Gibson Deluxe Pro (right) about five years ago. Loving the tone of P-90s but hating their onstage shortcomings (buzz), he opted for the middle ground by putting in a Lollar mini-humbucker in the bridge and a Porter mini ’bucker in the neck. The Lollar bridge mini is his go-to pickup on the Deluxe Pro and is the foundation in which the rest of his current tone is built around. Both guitars are typically in Eb standard tuning and take D’Addario strings gauged .012–.060. (That’s the set he’s played since he was 9 years old because he read SRV used huge strings.)
During his days of neck-humbucker glory with his first Les Paul, he would pair that force with a 100-watt Fender or Dumble-style amp with tons of headroom to even out the guitar’s low-end thickness and woof. Now that he rocks and rolls with a mini-humbucker in the bridge, he prefers matching the Deluxe Pro with 50-watt plexi-style amps. His main guitar for the last year or so has been this 2006 Germino Classic 45. The head uses high-plate voltage on the power transformer to give more clarity and headroom to the standard plexi formula. The Classic 45 runs into two Germino 2x12 cabs—the one under the head has Celestion Cream Alnicos and the all-black cab has Celestion Heritage G12H 30-watt speakers.
JB’s signal starts by hitting the Peterson StroboStomp HD. The first tone tickler is the D*A*M* (Differential Audio Manifestationz) Stompboxes Maggot Brain fuzz based on a BC108 Fuzz Face. To its left is another fuzz—a custom recreation of a Dallas Rangemaster made by Moreland Magnetics. And continuing down the bottom row you have a Prescription Electronics Experience octave fuzz and a his longtime favorite, a Subdecay Super Spring Theory reverb. Up top he has an Analog Man ARDX20 Dual Analog Delay (tap tempo/modulation controlled by the auxiliary Analog Man Amaze1 on its right).
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D'Addario XT Strings: https://www.daddario.com/XTRR
Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst have been making music as Shovels & Rope since 2008. The husband-and-wife duo from South Carolina specialize in rootsy, bluesy rock, Americana, and alt-country, but they don’t confine themselves to traditional two-piece arrangements. They switch off on vocal, guitar, percussion, and synth duty throughout their shows, orchestrating a full-band ruckus with all available limbs.
Their seventh full-length, Something Is Working Up Above My Head, released in September last year, and while touring in support of it, they stopped at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl in late February. PG’s John Bohlinger caught up with Trent before the gig to see what tools he and Hearst use to maintain their musical juggling act.
Brought to you by D’Addario.Black Bird
Trent’s not a guitar snob: Generally speaking, he plays whatever he can get his hands on. While playing Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Fest, someone loaned him this Gretsch Black Falcon, and he fell in love with it. He likes its size compared to the broader White Falcon. It’s also the band’s only electric, so if it goes down, it’s back to acoustic. Hearst takes turns on it, too.
Trent loads the heaviest strings he can onto it, which is a set of .013s. It lives in standard tuning.
Ol' Faithful
As Trent explains, he and Hearst have done some DIY decorating on this beautiful Gibson J-45—it’s adorned with sweat droplets, stains, and fingernail dust. It runs direct to the venue’s front-of-house system with an LR Baggs pickup. This one is strung with Martin heavy or medium gauge strings; lighter ones are too prone to snapping under Trent’s heavy picking hand (which holds a Dunlop Max-Grip .88 mm pick). And it rolls around in an Enki tour case.
On Call
These second-stringers—a Loar archtop and an LR Baggs-equipped Recording King—are on hand in case of broken strings or other malfunctions.
Need for Tweed
Trent doesn’t trust amps with too many knobs, so this tweed Fender Blues Junior does the trick. It can get fairly loud, so there’s a Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box on hand to tame it for some stages.
Shovels & Rope's Pedalboard
Because Trent and Hearst trade off bass, guitar, keys, and percussion duties, all four of their limbs are active through the set. Whoever is on guitars works this board, with an MXR Blue Box, Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff, EarthQuaker Devices Hummingbird, and Boss OC-5, plus a pair of Walrus Canvas Tuners for the electric and acoustic. Utility boxes on the board include a Walrus Canvas Passive Re-Amp, Radial J48, Livewire ABY1, and a Mesa Stowaway input buffer.
A Roland PK-5 MIDI controller, operated by foot, sits on the lower edge of the board. It controls the board for “Thing 2,” one of two MicroKORG synths onstage.
Thing 1 and Thing 2
There’s no one backstage helping Hearst and Trent cook up all their racket; they handle every sound themselves, manually. During the first few sets of a tour, you’re liable to see some headaches, like forgetting to switch synth patches during a song, but eventually they hit a rhythm.
Affectionately given Seuss-ian nicknames, this pair of microKORGs handles bass notes through the set, among other things, via the foot-controlled PK5. “Thing 1” is set up at the drum station, and runs through a board with an EHX Nano Big Muff, EHX Bass9, EHX Nano Holy Grail, and a Radial Pro DI. A Walrus Aetos keeps them all powered up.
The board for “Thing 2,” beside the guitar amps, includes an EHX Mel9 and Bass9 powered by a Truetone 1 SPOT Pro, plus a Radial ProD2.
